TOMORROW we are being asked to observe two minutes' silence in memory of those who died in two world wars and other conflicts.

It is a fitting gesture in the year of the 50th anniversaries of VE Day and VJ Day.

The silence should be of particular significance to young people.

Like the rest of us, they have their freedom today because of the sacrifice of young people in two world wars.

One only has to look at the headstones on war graves in Europe, the Middle East and Far East to realise that it was the young generations who fought and, in many cases, died to preserve our freedom.

Without that sacrifice we would be living under a totalitarian jackboot. Many of us would not be here at all.

However, a recent incident in a northern France war cemetery suggested that there are youngsters who have no idea what that sacrifice was all about.

First World War British graves, which had been kept in immaculate condition, even throughout the Second World War, were sprayed with paint by a visiting party of British schoolboys.

Let us hope that by tomorrow they will have realised how insensitive and crass their behaviour was.

We would appeal to everyone to observe the silence tomorrow, no matter what they may be doing. That simple gesture will prove that we really do remember them.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.